Active fume hood sash height monitoring with audible feedback

Abstract

Fume hoods in laboratories consume the energy equivalent of up to four American households per hood; however, closing a modern hood’s sash completely can save up to 75% of that energy. Past efforts have attempted to harness this potential energy reduction by reminding users to close the sash when a hood is not in use. In this work, we developed a device to measure the efficacy of these energy-saving methods. The device records the position of the sash and detects motion to determine whether a user is present, and, when fitted with a piezoelectric buzzer, can audibly alert users to close the sash when not in use. We installed this device in laboratories to quantify the energy and cost savings resulting from real-time audible feedback and found that the alarm reduced wasted energy by 87 to 98%. In addition, the platform demonstrated here can be used to quantitatively test other energy-saving methods that rely on user behavioral change in future work. Keywords: Energy savings, Behavioral modification, Active feedback, Motion detection